On paper, Graveyard Keeper sounds like a fun concept. It’s a management/simulation game of a medieval graveyard, with a sense of humor perfectly encapsulated in its wacky braying-donkey app icon. (I choose to believe this is intended to make fun of the endless screaming-angry-man icons found on Clash of Clans-clones.) Unfortunately, Graveyard Keeper will probably not win many new players to the genre thanks to its confusing tone and fixture on arcane busywork.

The first question for a mobile adaptation is: how are the controls? In menus, you get to tap and scroll through interface elements directly, but in the game world you use basic on-screen buttons and a static d-stick instead of swipe-anywhere controls. The d-stick is better than many, especially as it features an animated bounce back when released that visually reminds you to replace your thumb in the center.

It’s fiddly, though, and perhaps a little too sensitive, and I often found myself stuck on scenery or walking around objects I just wanted to approach. It seems to me a system where movement were locked to a grid might work better. There also seem to be a few too many buttons. The ‘work’ and ‘select’ actions could be combined into one control, since work is always held down for several seconds and select is always merely tapped. With a swipe for the rarely-used attack command, the devs could reduce the on-screen controls to a mere menu button.

Unlike similar management games like Stardew Valley, Graveyard Keeper doesn’t have daily tasks to give rhythm to march of time. Certain events, like meeting important characters that only happen on particular days, are about as far as it goes. Compounding this problem, the game uses a weird alchemical-symbol system to track its six-day week, making it impossible to hold in your mind when things need to get done. Is the bishop free on male-symbol day or on sun-day?

Instead, Graveyard Keeper‘s tasks are long multi-step processes that inevitably require a lot of time grinding for experience or materials and building one of seemingly dozens of crafting stations. I played for days and only buried one body, occupied as I was with making every part of every tool out of logs, rocks, and raw iron. Then there are tech trees for gardening, preaching, and writing books among others, three different kinds of skill points, and “faith” and “science” are resources in themselves. There’s a certain zen to it at times, but at other times it feels like a lot of busywork. That said, there’s a great deal of freedom and an awful lot to do, so if planning out long multi-stage tasks is your jam, you’ll love it.

Tonally, the game is strange. It wants to be both goofy and morbid and it works sometimes, especially when the game uses its medieval setting to satirize modern life. The funniest part to me was the unending bureaucracy of stamps and permissions required to get anything done in this supposedly-medieval town. A good joke, but also one that’s frustrating to deal with from a gameplay perspective. I can’t sell this bit of meat I took from a cadaver unless I bribe a thief for the right stamp? Are we just going to gloss over the cannibalism aspect of this situation first? Part of the problem is that NPCs don’t have strongly-defined personalities beyond one-note jokes. (The skull is a drunk. The donkey is a communist.)

There’s clearly a bit of Monty Python and the Holy Grail influence here, but the Pythons had the good sense to satirize the ignorance and bloodlust of a witch trial but then cut away before the actual execution. Not so in Graveyard Keeper, where your protagonist watches a burning without comment and is then tasked with putting up flyers for the next one. It’s darkness for its own sake, and rather off-putting.

Graveyard Keeper is a full-featured, PC-quality indie game, which is enough of a rarity on mobile to make it worth a glance. Fans of crafting will probably find a lot to like in Graveyard Keeper‘s incredibly baroque skills tree and endless tasks. It would be a good game for zoning out and listening to podcasts on a long plane trip. Players who are not on board the crafting bandwagon should probably try something like Stardew Valley.

Click Here!

If you would like to try out a new Square Enix RPG prior to its release, now is your perfect chance. The company has just released a demo for Oninaki on the Switch eShop in Japan, Australia and Europe, and it is expected to go live in North America very soon as well.

Here’s a bit more about what you can expect, courtesy of Gematsu:

The Oninaki demo includes a “Story Mode” that lets you experience the opening part of an epic tale about life, death and reincarnation, and “Battle Mode” where you can enjoy thrilling combat using an upgraded character possessed by four daemons that perform different job roles. You can also carry your progress from Story Mode over to the full game.

As noted, you’ll be able to transfer your progress across to the final game, which will require a total of 2.7GB of free space on your system. Lastly is a new trailer:

Will you be trying out this game ahead of its release next month? Leave a comment below.

After its May launch on Google Play and Android devices in May, the free-to-play title Pokémon Rumble Rush is now available to download from the Apple Store.

If you haven’t paid any attention to this game, now might be the time. It’s the fifth entry in the Rumble series and the first to enter the mobile fray. This particular title takes the mechanics of the series to new levels by providing another Pokémon “Game as a Service” experience. You’ll be sent out to various islands, where you must defeat bosses. Here’s a bit more about it, directly from our review:

Pokémon Rumble Rush is a charming game, and fun for those who like collecting things. However, the awkward map feature and the requirement of refining ore to get gears to boost the Pokémon mean it can be a needlessly frustrating grind, and the inclusion of a two-week deadline between area swaps, there’s the perhaps some unwelcome added pressure thrown into the mix as well. As we all perhaps expected, this free-to-play Pokémon outing doesn’t set the world on fire, but the truly dedicated fans who have followed the Rumble series this far will enjoy it all the same.

As the game has taken two months to make its way across to iOS devices, since then, there’s been additional in-game events rolled out, in the form of new islands.

Have you tried out this game yet? Are you a fan of the Pokémon Rumble series? Leave a comment below.

In the beginning there was dual boot, it was the only way to have more than one operating system on the same laptop. At the time, it was difficult for these operating systems to be run simultaneously or interact with each other. Many years passed before it was possible, on common PCs, to run an operating system inside another through virtualization.

Recent PCs or laptops, including moderately-priced ones, have the hardware features to run virtual machines with performance close to the physical host machine.

Virtualization has therefore become normal, to test operating systems, as a playground for learning new techniques, to create your own home cloud, to create your own test environment and much more. This article walks you through using Virt Manager on Fedora to setup virtual machines.

Introducing QEMU/KVM and Libvirt

Fedora, like all other Linux systems, comes with native support for virtualization extensions. This support is given by KVM (Kernel based Virtual Machine) currently available as a kernel module.

QEMU is a complete system emulator that works together with KVM and allows you to create virtual machines with hardware and peripherals.

Finally libvirt is the API layer that allows you to administer the infrastructure, ie create and run virtual machines.

The set of these three technologies, all open source, is what we’re going to install on our Fedora Workstation.

Installation

Step 1: install packages

Installation is a fairly simple operation. The Fedora repository provides the “virtualization” package group that contains everything you need.

 
sudo dnf install @virtualization
 

Step 2: edit the libvirtd configuration

By default the system administration is limited to the root user, if you want to enable a regular user you have to proceed as follows.

Open the /etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf file for editing

 
sudo vi /etc/libvirt/libvirtd.conf
 

Set the domain socket group ownership to libvirt

 
unix_sock_group = "libvirt"
 

Adjust the UNIX socket permissions for the R/W socket

 
unix_sock_rw_perms = "0770"
 

Step 3: start and enable the libvirtd service

 
sudo systemctl start libvirtd

sudo systemctl enable libvirtd
 

Step 4: add user to group

In order to administer libvirt with the regular user you must add the user to the libvirt group, otherwise every time you start virtual-manager you will be asked for the password for sudo.

 
sudo usermod -a -G libvirt $(whoami)
 

This adds the current user to the group. You must log out and log in to apply the changes.

Getting started with virt-manager

The libvirt system can be managed either from the command line (virsh) or via the virt-manager graphical interface. The command line can be very useful if you want to do automated provisioning of virtual machines, for example with Ansible, but in this article we will concentrate on the user-friendly graphical interface.

The virt-manager interface is simple. The main form shows the list of connections including the local system connection.

The connection settings include virtual networks and storage definition. it is possible to define multiple virtual networks and these networks can be used to communicate between guest systems and between the guest systems and the host.

Creating your first virtual machine

To start creating a new virtual machine, press the button at the top left of the main form:

The first step of the wizard requires the installation mode. You can choose between a local installation media, network boot / installation or an existing virtual disk import:

Choosing the local installation media the next step will require the ISO image path:

The subsequent two steps will allow you to size the CPU, memory and disk of the new virtual machine. The last step will ask you to choose network preferences: choose the default network if you want the virtual machine to be separated from the outside world by a NAT, or bridged if you want it to be reachable from the outside. Note that if you choose bridged the virtual machine cannot communicate with the host machine.

Check “Customize configuration before install” if you want to review or change the configuration before starting the setup:

The virtual machine configuration form allows you to review and modify the hardware configuration. You can add disks, network interfaces, change boot options and so on. Press “Begin installation” when satisfied:

At this point you will be redirected to the console where to proceed with the installation of the operating system. Once the operation is complete, you will have the working virtual machine that you can access from the console:

The virtual machine just created will appear in the list of the main form, where you will also have a graph of the CPU and memory occupation:

libvirt and virt-manager is a powerful tool that allows great customization to your virtual machines with enterprise level management. If something even simpler is desired, note that Fedora Workstation comes with GNOME Boxes pre-installed and can be sufficient for basic virtualization needs.

Unlike conventional subscriber identity module (SIM) cards, which are used to authenticate a user’s identity with a mobile service provider, an eSIM is permanently embedded in a device, eliminating the need to acquire physical SIM cards from a carrier. “We saw that this device was able to take advantage of eSIM technology, which is uncharted territory in our industry,” says Olsen. “We’ve envisioned this for a long time because it’s easy to lose physical SIM cards. And with the eSIM and Microsoft Intune, we can send up to 20 SIM profiles to one client so that we can find the right profile for the region where we’re flying and quickly activate it.” In addition, because the eSIM is non-removable, there are no issues in matching the various physical SIM card sizes to devices.

A tough job
EFB devices need to be tough. Flying through sub-zero temperatures in Norway during a brutal winter one day and landing in the searing heat of Dubai the next, demands a device that can stand up to temperature extremes. Even in a climate-controlled cockpit, devices are subjected to direct sunlight and cold because of their placement.

These devices must also remain stable and reliable regardless of exposure to rapid decompression. Among the requirements that are mandated by various regulatory bodies, including the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), EFB devices must also have fail-safe power sources. For Olsen, Microsoft provides an advantage, as it maintains a dedicated lab for meticulous device testing. “Microsoft provides decompression testing for devices that are used as EFBs,” he explains. “Rather than testing the devices myself, I get all the relevant results directly from Microsoft.”

Lighting the way
Screen brightness is a vital factor in an always-on cockpit environment. Pilots need a responsive, easily-adjustable screen to match fast-changing conditions. EFB data must be easily visible in bright sunlight or during the gloomy darkness of a night flight. “It’s really amazing to see the difference of the Surface Pro LTE screen in different light conditions,” Olsen states. “When you’re working with 2,500 pilots, you’ll always have extremes of opinion in what lighting level works best, so the ease of adjusting the screen is essential.”

Beyond brightness, another important screen factor is its sensitivity and accuracy. Crews use Surface Pro with LTE Advanced in tablet mode, so touch sensitivity is paramount, and Norwegian Air Shuttle calibrates screen sensitivity on devices every two to three months. Unlike previous devices, Olsen finds that the touch sensitivity of the Surface Pro with LTE Advanced doesn’t fade over time—an important factor for crews who may be flying in turbulent weather and require instant screen responsiveness without taking time to recalibrate or repeat an action when every second counts.

Johan Gauermann, Deputy Director of Flight Operations at Norwegian Air Shuttle states that “Our team of pilots really appreciate the value of our EFB Application in combination with the global LTE Connectivity of the Surface Devices. We train thousands of pilots, and they become effective Surface users quickly. The bright display at high altitudes and responsive touch screen work for everyone.”

Synchronising EFBs around the world
Ensuring that all devices around the world are updated is also extremely important. The Norwegian team is working to perfect the next advancement in its device strategy—using Windows Autopilot Deployment to load Windows 10 and manage updates with self-service provisioning. Olsen looks forward to shipping Surface Pro with LTE Advanced devices around the globe, using Windows Autopilot to ensure that each device is configured to his exact specifications. “We’re taking our EFB provisioning to a new level with the possibilities we see in current Microsoft solutions,” he says. “Wherever I send the device, I can be sure that through the Intune portal and Windows Autopilot, it will be set up exactly as we want: all the settings, eSIM profiles, and software.”

With hundreds of planes to provision with EFB devices and the requirements for consistently high performance, Norwegian Air Shuttle puts a premium on reliability. Olsen looks for well-made devices that will last, and he doesn’t compromise on performance. The capabilities of Surface Pro with LTE Advanced was, according to him, the icing on the cake:

“We tested devices that were far more expensive,” he describes. “Price isn’t an issue for the right device. Only one device provided the best value—the performance we need at a reasonable cost that ticked every box on the list, plus LTE. We anticipate a huge benefit within the next year when our entire fleet is equipped with Surface Pro LTE.”

For more information, please visit Microsoft Customer Stories.

By Christine McKee
Monday, July 15, 2019, 12:11 am PT (03:11 am ET)

Amazon Prime Day 2019 is officially here, and we’re compiling the best deals on Apple products, accessories, Amazon hardware and much more. Check back throughout July 15 and July 16 for live updates as new deals launch.

Amazon’s Prime Day sale has begun, and we’re rounding up the best deals on tech gadgets, including deals on Apple products with a Prime membership. Continue to check back throughout the 48-hour sale as we’ll be bringing you the best deals from Amazon and third-party sellers.

Top deals

1. Apple Watches and iPads: From $169 (Up to 30% off)
2. 128GB 2018 iPad (Wi-Fi): $299 ($130 off)
3. 38mm Apple Watch Series 3 GPS (Space Gray Aluminum, Black Sport Band): $169 ($110 off)
4. Beats Solo3 Wireless On-Ear Headphones: $139.99 ($160 off)
5. 2019 Apple AirPods with Charging Case: $144.99 ($15 off)
6. 2019 Apple AirPods with Wireless Charging Case: $179.99 ($20 off)
7. 2019 MacBook Air (1.6GHz, 8GB, 128GB) Space Gray: $1,049 with code APINSIDER ($50 off)
8. 2019 13″ MacBook Pro (1.4GHz, 8GB, 128GB) Space Gray: $1,229 with code APINSIDER ($70 off)
9. 2017 12.9″ iPad Pro (512GB, Wi-Fi) Silver: $699 ($450 off)
10. 2014 Mac mini (2.8GHz, 8GB, 1TB FUS): $489 ($510 off)

Prime Day deals on Apple and Amazon hardware

Find Prime Day savings on Amazon devices.

As in years past, Amazon has issued extensive markdowns on its own line of Fire, Kindle and Echo devices for Prime Day. Save up to 64% instantly on individual systems and bundles, with all of the deals view-able here. New to Prime Day 2019, Amazon is also knocking up to 30% off Apple Watches and iPads.

Apple Watch deals

iPad deals

Fire TV deals

Fire TV Stick deals

Echo deals

Fire Tablets

Ring Doorbell deals

Exclusive deals on MacBook Pros and iMacs

Exclusive savings on MacBook Pros and iMacs are in effect.

Shoppers on Prime Day can also save up to $2,500 instantly on iMac and MacBook Pro computers. Plus, grab exclusive savings on closeout iPad Pros with high-end 12.9-inch models available for just $699. Please note, these deals must be activated via the special pricing links in this post. Promo code APINSIDER will also need to be entered for the Adorama deals. See the footnotes in each section for additional instructions.

Need help? Send us a note at [email protected] and we will do our best to assist.

iMac 5K + AppleCare bundle

2019 MacBook Air promo code

• 2019 MacBook Air (1.6GHz, 8GB, 128GB) Space Gray: $1,049* ($50 off)
• 2019 MacBook Air (1.6GHz, 8GB, 128GB) Silver: $1,049* ($50 off)
• 2019 MacBook Air (1.6GHz, 8GB, 128GB) Gold: $1,049* ($50 off)
• 2019 MacBook Air (1.6GHz, 8GB, 256GB) Space Gray: $1,229* ($70 off)
• 2019 MacBook Air (1.6GHz, 8GB, 256GB) Silver: $1,229* ($70 off)
• 2019 MacBook Air (1.6GHz, 8GB, 256GB) Gold: $1,229* ($70 off)
  *Price with coupon code APINSIDER using the instructions below. Compare prices in our 2019 MacBook Air Price Guide.

New 2019 13″ MacBook Pro coupon

• 2019 13″ MacBook Pro (1.4GHz, 8GB, 128GB) Space Gray: $1,229* ($70 off)
• 2019 13″ MacBook Pro (1.4GHz, 8GB, 128GB) Silver: $1,229* ($70 off)
• 2019 13″ MacBook Pro (1.4GHz, 8GB, 256GB) Space Gray: $1,399* ($100 off)
• 2019 13″ MacBook Pro (1.4GHz, 8GB, 256GB) Silver: $1,399* ($100 off)
  *Price with coupon code APINSIDER using the instructions below. More coupon deals can be found in our Price Guide.

Bonus savings on Apple’s 2018 MacBook Air

Lowest prices ever on 2018 MacBook Pros

• 2018 15″ MacBook Pro (2.9GHz, 32GB, 2TB, 560X) Space Gray: $3,499* ($1,000 off)
• 2018 15″ MacBook Pro (2.9GHz, 32GB, 4TB, 560X) Space Gray: $3,799* ($2,500 off)
  *To activate the deals, you must follow the instructions in this deal guide. For additional bargains, be sure to check out our 15-inch MacBook Pro Price Guide.

New price drops on Mac mini

Grab the lowest price ever on Apple’s upgraded 2014 Mac mini.

B&H has also launched new deals on closeout Mac mini systems, with prices as low as $489. This represents an additional $50 price drop for Prime Day compared to last week’s cost.

Upgraded Mac mini now $489

Apple accessory deals

Nomad Battery Cable

Prime Day deals are also going on now with discounts of up to 80% off everything from AirPods to back-to-school covers and stands from Twelve South.

AirPods 2 deals

Twelve South accessories

Satechi accessories

Nomad Battery cable $19.98 with coupon

Software

The Mighty Mac Bundle

Shoppers can also save on VPN subscriptions and photo editing tools with Prime Day 2019 markdowns.

Prime Day software deals

More Apple deals

AppleInsider has partnered with top Apple Authorized Resellers to bring you even more Apple markdowns, many of which are available only at AI. Top offers on a variety of Macs, iPads and Apple Watches can be found below, with the lowest prices available every day in our Apple Price Guide.

Daniel

With this newest Blazor release we’re pleased to announce that Blazor is now in official preview! Blazor is no longer experimental and we are committing to ship it as a supported web UI framework including support for running client-side in the browser on WebAssembly.

A little over a year ago we started the Blazor experimental project with the goal of building a client web UI framework based on .NET and WebAssembly. At the time Blazor was little more than a prototype and there were lots of open questions about the viability of running .NET in the browser. Since then we’ve shipped nine experimental Blazor releases addressing a variety of concerns including component model, data binding, event handling, routing, layouts, app size, hosting models, debugging, and tooling. We’re now at the point where we think Blazor is ready to take its next step.

Simplifying the naming and versioning

For a while, we’ve used the terminology Razor Components in some cases, and Blazor in other cases. This has proven to be confusing, so following a lot of community feedback, we’ve decided to drop the name ASP.NET Core Razor Components, and return to the name Server-side Blazor instead.

This emphasizes that Blazor is a single client app model with multiple hosting models:

• Server-side Blazor runs on the server via SignalR
• Client-side Blazor runs client-side on WebAssembly

… but either way, it’s the same programming model. The same Blazor components can be hosted in both environments.

Also, since Blazor is now part of .NET Core, the client-side Blazor package versions now align with the .NET Core 3.0 versions. For example, the version number of all the preview packages we are shipping today is 3.0.0-preview4-19216-03. We no longer use separate 0.x version numbers for client-side Blazor packages.

What will ship when

• Server-side Blazor will ship as part of .NET Core 3.0. This was already announced last October.
• Client-side Blazor won’t ship as part of the initial .NET Core 3.0 release, but we are now announcing it is committed to ship as part of a future .NET Core release (and hence is no longer an “experiment”).

With each preview release of .NET Core 3.0, we will continue to ship preview releases of both server and client-side Blazor.

Today’s preview release

New features in this preview release:

• Templates updated to use the .razor file extension
• _Imports.razor
• Scope components with @using
• New component item template
• New Blazor icons
• Blazor support in Visual Studio Code

Check out the ASP.NET Core 3.0 Preview 4 announcement for details on these improvements. See also the Blazor release notes for additional details on this preview release.

Get the Blazor preview

To get started with the Blazor preview install the following:

1. .NET Core 3.0 Preview 4 SDK (3.0.100-preview4-011223)

2. The Blazor templates on the command-line:

   dotnet new -i Microsoft.AspNetCore.Blazor.Templates::3.0.0-preview4-19216-03
   

3. Visual Studio 2019 Preview with the ASP.NET and web development workload selected as well as the latest Blazor extension from the Visual Studio Marketplace, or Visual Studio Code with the latest C# extension (now with Blazor support!).

You can find getting started instructions, docs, and tutorials for Blazor at our new Blazor home page at https://blazor.net.

Upgrade to the Blazor preview:

To upgrade your existing Blazor apps to the new Blazor preview first make sure you’ve installed the prerequisites listed above then follow these steps:

• Update all Microsoft.AspNetCore.Blazor.* package references to 3.0.0-preview4-19216-03.
• Remove any package reference to Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Server.
• Remove any DotNetCliToolReference to Microsoft.AspNetCore.Blazor.Cli and replace with a package reference to Microsoft.AspNetCore.Blazor.DevServer.
• In client Blazor projects remove the <RunCommand>dotnet</RunCommand> and <RunArguments>blazor serve</RunArguments> properties.
• In client Blazor projects add the <RazorLangVersion>3.0</RazorLangVersion> property.
• Rename all _ViewImports.cshtml files to _Imports.razor.
• Rename all remaining .cshtml files to .razor.
• Rename components.webassembly.js to blazor.webassembly.js
• Remove any use of the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.Services namespace and replace with Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components as required.
• Update server projects to use endpoint routing:

// Replace this:

app.UseMvc(routes =>

{ routes.MapRoute(name: "default", template: "{controller}/{action}/{id?}");

}); // With this:

app.UseRouting(); app.UseEndpoints(routes =>

{ routes.MapDefaultControllerRoute();

});

• Run dotnet clean on the solution to clear out old Razor declarations.

Blazor community page is now Awesome Blazor

As part of updating the Blazor site, we’ve decided to retire the Blazor community page and instead direct folks to the community driven Awesome Blazor site. Thank you Adrien Torris for maintaining this truly “awesome” list of Blazor resources!

Try out preview Blazor UI offerings from Telerik, DevExpress, and Syncfusion

Blazor benefits from an active and supportive community that has contributed all sorts of sample apps, components, and libraries to the Blazor ecosystem. Recently popular component vendors like Telerik, DevExpress, and Syncfusion have joined in the fun and shipped previews of Blazor UI components. We encourage you to give these Blazor UI offerings a try and let them know what you think.

Give feedback

We hope you enjoy this latest preview release of Blazor. As with previous releases, your feedback is important to us. If you run into issues or have questions while trying out Blazor, file issues on GitHub. You can also chat with us and the Blazor community on Gitter if you get stuck or to share how Blazor is working for you. After you’ve tried out Blazor for a while please let us know what you think by taking our in-product survey. Click the survey link shown on the app home page when running one of the Blazor project templates:

Thanks for trying out Blazor!

Daniel Roth

Principal Program Manager, ASP.NET

Follow Daniel